The Spot: Radio Cafe
602-956-6600
www.radiocafeaz.com/
The Hours: Happy hour is 5 p.m. till 7 p.m. daily. They are open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and till 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays for late night eats.
The Details: Half off all specialty cocktails, draft beer and wine by the glass plus, 2 for 1 sushi.
The Interior: Don't be fooled by the outwardly small exterior of this renovated 1950's building --- it's surprisingly big inside. Step inside the cool, pleasantly dim Radio Café and take in all of its vintage modern beauty. Barrel ceilings, exposed block walls, hip lighting, butcher block bar and plenty of attractive, comfy places to sit fill the large open space. Saunter to the back of the building and grab a seat at the outdoor bar or snag one of the tables one the patio.
The Cost: 4 specialty cocktails, 1 California roll and 1 Spicy Tuna roll plus tax come to $31.41, not including tip.
The Conclusion: We're total suckers for the vintage modern trend when it comes to our drinking establishments, so our apologies in advance for our bias opinion of Radio Café. If we were to own a bar it would be something like this one --- minus the $10 price tag on drinks during non-happy hours.
The atmosphere of Radio Café is laid back and comfortable. This is the kinda of place that you could go have a solo drink on a Wednesday afternoon and have a great time. The staff is unbelievable friendly, the drinks are not for the faint of heart, the food is superb and the patio is the perfect place to be after being cooped up in a windowless office, cubicle. Awesome, awesome and more awesome.
What threw us off was the sushi. Although it was weird at first to see sushi on the same menu as meatloaf, it was refreshing to finally see some variety on a menu. They have still have your comfort foods such as grilled cheese and chips and guacamole but thankfully, there is no sign of an over-priced mac n' cheese that will never be as good as the boxed kind. The sushi is surprisingly good to boot. The spicy tuna rolls had nice fresh chunks of tuna and crisp lettuce. The California roll which boosted real crab and an amazing sauce was nowhere near being a plain sushi staple.
Enough about food, let's move on to the drinks. These people want to get you hammered. If you are looking for a drink that is saturated in sugar to mask the alcohol run far away from here. One sip of the Sazerack was enough to give us a buzz.
The Ginger Press made with housemade ginger ale, Tito's vodka and fresh lemon was the perfect afternoon martini. Housemade Chai and Double Espresso vodka made us wish we could drink the Chai cocktail for Breakfast and the house infused prickly pear tequila is something that you have to see and taste for yourself.
If Radio Café were a band, they would be on heavy rotation. Only for happy hour, though, since after 7 p.m. everything goes back to normal and normal is not in this blogger's budget.
Overall Grade: A